


Be There to Catch Me

by imagined_melody



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con References, References to Abuse, References to Homophobia, god this is a cheery fandom isn't it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_melody/pseuds/imagined_melody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, Mickey knows he was lucky to come out of his confrontation with Terry alive. Sometimes in the night, though, he still gets panic attacks when he remembers what happened that day. Luckily Ian is there for him. (Hurt/comfort as a response to Season 3, because God knows we all need it.)</p><p>Now updated with a second continuation chapter!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Be There To Catch Me

**Author's Note:**

> I've fallen in love with "Shameless" in general, but this pairing in particular is just breaking my heart. So naturally I started thinking about what the effects of the events in 3x06 to 3x12 might be for Mickey in particular! The description of the past rape and violence isn't too graphic, but there is detailed and extensive discussion of panic attacks, so be warned for that. Otherwise, enjoy the angst. I hope they are in character- in the fic they've been together on their own for a year, so I think they'd naturally be a little more affectionate than they are in canon (and it's hurt/comfort, which kind of requires a little extra tenderness no matter what).

It could have been a lot worse.

If you had told Mickey that when he was eighteen– married to a Russian hooker his father had made him fuck once, shattered from a beating and a rape that had been committed against him as retribution for being attracted to men instead of women– he would probably have punched you in the face. (He still might, in fact; the memories of that time were terrible, and even now he could barely stand to think of them.) But considering that he came out of the whole thing alive, it was safe to say things could have gone much worse than they did. He was alive, and Ian was alive, and marriage was shitty but it was hardly the worst of his options where his dad was concerned. 

The worst side effect he’d incurred, after the bruises faded and even the sight of Svetlana no longer made him want to hurl, was emotional rather than physical. The emotions that Mickey kept so closely guarded during the day reared their heads, every few weeks, in the form of panic attacks. He knew, instinctively, that he was not sick– at least not with any textbook disease. These episodes came on him every once in a while, almost always at night, like a recurring bad dream he couldn’t control. He would lie there miserably, choking back the urge to vomit and clutching his chest and arms, fighting back the pain as well as the tears that wanted to be released too. Usually he would drop off eventually into a light, restless sleep; when he woke up the next morning he would be sore all over, his head pounding with a migraine and his heart still not quite right. 

When Ian had returned from the army, dismissed after only a few months when his false identity was discovered, Mickey finally had an opportunity to escape. They moved across town, to a neighborhood no more classy than Canaryville but marginally safer, and with that distance the anxiety died down. The episodes became fewer and further apart, and having someone else there to see him through did wonders for him.

They had been together for over a year before Mickey woke up in the night again scared and in pain; the panic attacks had all but stopped months ago, and the few moments of anxiety he had experienced since then had dramatically lessened in intensity. But he must have dreamed something– he couldn’t quite remember now– and triggered the emotions lurking deep inside, because he woke up sweating, his chest tight and painful, feeling like he wanted to scream he was so scared. It was reminiscent of the worst attacks he had gotten before reuniting with Ian, where his fear felt like it was trying to tear its way out of his body. For a moment he could not move at all, paralyzed so that he could neither reach out for help nor form any sound, as if in a dream from which he could not wake up. Then he managed to will some motion into his limbs, and let a hand fall onto Ian’s skin, nudging him as Mickey doubled over with another wave of nauseating pain and fear.

Ian stirred, sleepy for a moment before he sensed trouble. His eyes blinked open. “Oh, shit,” he said blearily, pushing himself upright and swaying for a moment with half-sleep as he instinctively reached out for Mickey. The man was shaking, feeling the fear take him over, but when Ian reached out to take his hand, Mickey curled their fingers together gratefully. His responsiveness was encouraging; Mickey was not as far gone as he might have been. They stayed that way for a long while: Ian’s body facing Mickey’s, touching in a few places but not too close, mainly connected by the hand that Mickey was now clutching too tightly in his own. Mickey focused only on continuing to breathe, and staying aware of his surroundings, fighting his way through the pain washing over him in a flood.

When the attack finally subsided, his breathing ragged, Mickey loosened his grip on Ian’s fingers. (He was too overwhelmed to notice the way Ian stretched them out, grimacing slightly at how sore they were from being manhandled.) Ian scooted closer, bracketing Mickey from behind with his body, and muttered. “Been a long time since you had one of those.” Gentle hands were smoothing themselves over his body, and Mickey cleared his throat harshly and whimpered, the closest he was able to get to a verbal response at that point. He was still shaking slightly. “How do you feel?” Ian asked gently.

Mickey took a moment to remember how to form words. “Head’s spinning,” he managed. “Dizzy. Think I might throw up.” The nausea was cresting over him in moderate waves.

Ian reached around and pulled the wastebasket in front of him, just in case. “Want to move to the bathroom for a while?” he asked.

Mickey started to shake his head, but thought better of the vigorous back-and-forth movement and made a negative sound instead. “Need to lie down,” he answered, and Ian understood that the fact that he had not done so on his own meant that he needed help. The young man guided him onto his side on the bed, slowly so as not to jostle him. Mickey felt the bed shift as he got up, and then Ian came back with a cool damp cloth, which he placed on Mickey’s forehead to combat the dizziness. Mickey made a small grateful sound, the tiny bit of comfort making him feel pitifully like crying. When a few silent tears did escape, Ian said nothing– just kept near to him, recognizing this as an emotional response to the care he was receiving.

Mickey’s panic attacks had run the gamut of severity since he had been a teenager. They had started way back then– nights full of anxiety that he had to endure silently and subsume into his own body so that no one around him would know about it. Everyone could be untrustworthy there, with the obvious exception of Mandy, who had helped him, in her own way, when no one else would. Any sign of weakness could potentially bring further retribution from his father. So he bottled everything inside, until his body was aching with tension and he was so closed-off that not even the comfort he so desperately needed could get through. 

Since then, these episodes had come with a wide variety of side effects, depending on the situation. He had cried many times, cried so hard he thought he would choke and stop breathing with the force of it. Once, in a particularly unpleasant instance, he had woke up feeling like he did now, like screaming– only he had been so terrified that he _had_ screamed, Ian holding him while he doubled over and yelled in agony. He had felt angry, violated, and so scared that he could not be consoled, and Ian had stayed with him the whole time, murmuring “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK,” until finally Mickey had lost the energy to scream and had sagged against his partner. Ian had continued shushing him as he trembled and breathed in labored gasps and told him what he had dreamed about that had caused him such pain. Ian already knew generally what had happened– the parts he was there for all too vividly impressed in his memory, the rest told him in bits and pieces over time– but he held Mickey closer and listened without judgment as he relived his most horrible memories of all, including those which he had not yet spoken aloud.

Now, as this latest panic attack subsided, he sighed and allowed himself to feel loved and cared for. The threads of his latest dream were all that was left; he remembered the powerful sensation of being bruised and battered by forceful hands, his father’s voice echoing in his mind, the memory of being violated and touched against his will. For a while before he found Ian, he had seriously considered never allowing anyone to touch him again; the idea of someone getting that close and having such freedom over his body was unthinkable. But Ian was someone he trusted, who he knew would not take liberties, who cared for him despite what a shitty person Mickey usually was convinced that he was. So he let Ian take care of him, and gradually he felt the pain in his chest subside. Ian settled behind him and rested a gentle hand on Mickey’s stomach, rubbing with his fingers in circles until he heard the man’s breathing become even and calm. 

Mickey could already feel the migraine beginning, so when Ian got up for a second– pressing a kiss to Mickey’s neck as he did so, as a further means of comfort– and came back with water and a few Advil, he sat up long enough to take them gratefully. He laid back down on the bed, and Ian leaned over him and gave him a short, chaste kiss on his lips. Then he pulled the covers over both of them and curled in, his body language protective in a way that was weirdly at odds with his usually gentle nature. Mickey felt a little bit of the pressure in his chest lift at the strength of Ian’s affection; he had always dealt in expressions of force, but had honestly never thought that the force that would match his capacity for destruction would be Ian’s sheer ability to love. He was bowled over by it, even more so when Ian whispered into his shoulder, “Love you so much sometimes I can hardly stand it.” He was unable to answer, but he brought a hand up to the back of Ian’s head, his palm anchoring them together. 

Ian was always unfailingly patient with him in these moments, no matter what course his reactions took or how severe they were. He was still patient a few hours later, when Mickey woke up again with a migraine worse than any he’d had in years and barely made it to the bathroom before vomiting miserably into the toilet. His head was pounding, the pressure behind his eyelids making it painful to open them even in the low light of the bathroom. When he was done throwing up everything in his stomach, he flushed the toilet and rested his throbbing head against it while he shuddered with the misery of having just been sick. He only stopped when he felt Ian’s cool hands on his sweaty back, rubbing up and down in a soothing motion. Then he calmed, even when he was wracked by another bout of dry heaves that had him doubled over again, though nothing would come up.

Ian got him back into bed once he felt like his stomach was settling, moving the wastebasket next to him once again in case the need to vomit struck him for a second time. The sun was just coming up, but even the minuscule light of the oncoming dawn was causing Mickey to wince and shut his eyes tightly, so Ian lowered all the blinds. Then, as he almost always did, he rubbed his fingers against Mickey’s temples to ease the ache there. Mickey whimpered and initially tensed at the contact to an area that was sensitive to the touch, but then slowly began to relax into it. Ian moved a little closer, then whispered into his skin. “Do you think you can sleep now? You’ll feel better if you get some rest.”

Mickey said nothing, focusing only on overcoming his migraine and keeping his still-wavering emotions under control. He was suddenly finding he couldn’t keep his eyes open, but he was still in too much pain to sleep restfully, and going back to sleep in this unstable state made him uneasy. He whimpered again and pulled at Ian’s hand, still unsure how to communicate this; the only word he was able to muster was “Can’t.” 

Ian curled their fingers together. “Tell me what you need, then.” When Mickey didn’t answer, his eyes watering in misery and frustration, Ian kissed his forehead and said, “I think I have an idea. How’s your stomach? Do you think you can get up in a few minutes?” Mickey nodded– the nausea had mostly subsided at that point– and Ian looked at him with a strange fondness before getting up and returning to the bathroom. Mickey heard the water running, and thought frantically that he didn’t think he could stay standing long enough for a shower– but then he realized Ian wasn’t turning the shower on; he was running a bath for him. Just the idea of lying immersed in water made him instantly feel a bit better, and he stayed patiently on the bed until Ian returned and said, “Ready?” He nodded again, and Ian guided him to a sitting and then a standing position. 

The light was on in the bathroom, and Mickey squinted at the brightness, already feeling it burn his eyelids as the stabbing pain in his head flared back full force. “I don’t think I can–“ he started to say, but Ian cut him off with a quiet “Ssh, I know, I’ve got you. Don’t worry about that.” He guided Mickey to lean back in the bathtub, and the effect of the water was immediate: Mickey relaxed all over and groaned as contentedly as his exhausted and still-rattled body could manage. His eyes fell shut, and so he only noticed by the darkening in front of his eyelids that Ian had turned the lights off, leaving Mickey to relax in the semi-darkness.

Ian disappeared for several minutes; Mickey heard his quiet footsteps as he padded in his bare feet into the hallway. Mickey was content to be left alone for the moment. His mind was drifting, the relaxation palpable as his tension and unease faded into greater quietness. The only sounds were the lapping of the water against his skin, and further away, the muted noise of Ian moving through different rooms of the house. The headache had faded a small measure, into a dull ache that still permeated his nerves but no longer made him feel like vomiting. 

About fifteen minutes later, Ian came back into the room. He sat down on the toilet seat lid, drawing one leg up to his body and propping the other foot up on the edge of the bathtub. Mickey was so relaxed that he could barely move, but he lifted one hand out of the water to curl around Ian’s bare foot, rubbing his fingers over the arch. Ian flexed his toes in response. Mickey opened his eyes and looked at Ian. He was hard to see in the half-light– the sun was only just dawning, and the bathroom was barely lit, so he could only see the young man’s silhouette and the faintest outline of his face. His features were settled, but tired, and he was leaning his back against the sink, propping his head on his right hand. Mickey’s own hand slipped back into the water, and he drifted for a while longer, feeling his eyelids growing heavy and his physical sensations numbing.

When he opened his eyes again, the water was still warm, but markedly less so. Ian’s head was still resting on his hand, and his eyes were closed, mouth slightly open; he appeared to be dozing. Mickey shifted in the water, and Ian’s eyes fluttered open. “Is that better?” he asked, sounding only mostly awake.

Mickey made a noise of agreement. “Think I can sleep now,” he told Ian. If he was being truthful, he didn’t think he could stay awake much longer. 

Ian helped him out of the bathtub and gave him a towel to dry himself off with, then left the room. Mickey patted himself dry, and then he changed into a pair of clean boxers, which Ian had left on the toilet seat for him. When he moved into the bedroom after brushing his teeth, he found the bed made with fresh sheets, and shut his eyes for a second in relief and sudden affection for the man who so selflessly took care of him. 

By the time Ian came back a few minutes later, Mickey was lying under the covers, curled up and mostly asleep. Ian nudged him awake with the gentlest of touches; in one hand he held two Advil, in the other a glass with a very small amount of ginger ale. “Take these,” he said in a quiet voice. Mickey’s headache had already subsided a fraction, so he needed very little additional medication. He swallowed the pills and drank the fizzy liquid gratefully, relieved at how easy it was on his stomach even though he no longer felt nauseous. 

The empty glass was placed on the table next to the bed. Ian climbed under the covers with him, and Mickey turned delicately to face him. The other man looked tired, and Mickey felt a pang of guilt knowing that the Gallagher boy had gotten very little sleep that night on account of him. Mickey touched their foreheads together, feeling vulnerable still but much more stable, the gesture his only way of expressing his thanks to Ian.

Mickey was only half-conscious, and so he remembered the moments between getting into bed and sleeping only as flashes: noticing Ian’s eyelids flutter shut as he dropped off to sleep; the sun spreading in lines, muted by the drawn blinds, as it rose further in the sky. He burrowed into the blankets, his eyes closing unbidden, knowing that both the images in his dreams and the pain in his body would now have faded enough for him to sleep properly. He fell gently into unconsciousness soon afterward.

\---

There was a moment, around 8:00 in the morning, when Mickey woke up again. He glanced at the clock, then at Ian, who was out like a light in the bed next to him. He didn’t even stir when Mickey rolled over, and the other man realized that his lover must be exhausted, dead to the world. Mickey was already headed back towards sleep himself; some part of him had simply wanted to make sure, he knew, that Ian was there and safe and all right. With this confirmed, he shut his eyes again and fell back into sleep.


	2. As Bad As It Gets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In "Be There To Catch Me," it's mentioned that Mickey once had a panic attack so bad that he woke up screaming. This is the description of that event. Takes place about six or seven months before the events of "Be There to Catch Me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As if the first story wasn't full enough of angsty hurt/comfort, I decided to write about Mickey's worst panic attack related to the events of 3x06. Just to kick it up a notch. :) It's similar enough in content to "Be There To Catch Me" that I've simply added it as a chapter of the same fic, rather than a completely independent story. Should be read as a sort of continuation or fill-in fic.

Mickey shuddered awake with a jolt in the early morning hours. That in and of itself wasn’t a wholly unfamiliar thing, although thankfully it was becoming more of a rare occurrence than it had once been; Ian’s presence alone went a long way towards curbing his panicked outbursts. What was unusual was that he awoke with a sharp cry fading on his lips. His first conscious moments were disoriented, as he tried to make sense of his surroundings and separate reality from the circumstances of his dream. At first, his only clear memory of the dream was that palpable anxiety, a dread that comes from having witnessed or experienced something horrible. Then, in a rush, the whole scenario returned to him.

His first response to waking from the dream was to surge upward and struggle for breath, feeling palpably the sensation of being choked and held down, as though the imprint of his father’s restraining hand were burned onto his neck. A mangled cry hung onto the edge of his waking gasp, and as he breathed harshly on the bed and came back to his senses, he felt like a caged animal– every nerve ending on fire, like he wanted to tear himself apart and rip his way out of his own skin. Ian was sitting awake next to him, and probably had been for some time; it was very likely, given the dream he’d been having, that Mickey had been making noise in his sleep. When Mickey’s breathing became a whining, hyperventilating gasp, the younger man pulled him close from behind and said, “It’s OK, let go, Mickey. Let it out.”

And he did. His first instinct, terrified as he was, was to scream– to cry out like he had not been able to do on that horrible day. The sound that came out of him was a cry of utter agony, and Ian immediately held him, held on and didn’t let go even when Mickey doubled over and kept screaming, writhing as though he wanted to get free (although Ian knew he didn’t; it wasn’t him that Mickey was fighting against here). He was only half aware of himself, lost in misery and unable to be reached or consoled. He screamed until he was exhausted and his voice went raw, until the wetness in his throat caused him to choke on his own tears. Then he shuddered bodily, several times, the cries subsiding to a prolonged trembling that Ian soothed with gentle hands up and down his body, so careful. 

When Mickey’s breathing finally settled into a raw-sounding series of gasps, he sagged against Ian, unable to even hold himself upright anymore, he was so exhausted. Ian received him into his arms fully, hands tightening around him with gentle firmness at first, and then almost painfully as Mickey felt a small shaking beginning in the man behind him. That was his only indication that Ian was reacting at all to Mickey’s distress. He turned around and saw that silent tears were streaming down Ian’s face; his cheeks were soaked with them, although he made no sound, not even a hitching of breath. When Mickey cast his eyes up and noticed Ian’s state, Ian did suck in a high-pitched, shuddering breath, as though trying to stem the flow of tears and compose himself. It was a wildly unsuccessful attempt, as it only caused more tears to escape from his eyes.

Mickey lifted a shaking hand to Ian’s damp cheek and hoarsely mumbled, “Shit, Gallagher, don’t fuckin’ cry,” and Ian closed his eyes sadly and took a deep breath. They stayed that way for several moments, and then Mickey began to talk, even though every word out of his throat was painful for him (both physically- his throat felt like it had been stripped raw- and emotionally). Ian would have understood if Mickey had been unable to say anything, but the other man felt a palpable need to speak, to get it out of his system. So he described his feelings and what had gone through his mind on that morning and on other mornings his dad had harmed him, things which he had confided to Ian only in a vague and general sense before that moment. Ian’s expression shifted through several emotions equally as he listened, his face a mixture of sympathy and pain and a slight touch of horror– not horror at Mickey, but at the violence of his story. Early on in the tale, he reached out and tightly threaded their fingers together, and Mickey clung to them as he gave all the details, comforted by the gentle press of Ian’s thumb at his pulse and the unwaveringly kind expression of his eyes.

When he had finished, Mickey shut his eyes and breathed, feeling as though by speaking his story out loud, he had lightened its burden on his heart. Ian’s lip trembled, but he quelled it by leaning down and stroking fingers delicately over Mickey’s face, and then pressing their lips together in a soothing kiss. They both sighed into it in a visible expression of relief. When they parted, Ian said, “I wish we’d done something. Before it got this bad.” 

Mickey coughed, then winced at how irritated his throat was. He started to get up, raising himself to a sitting position on the bed. “How the fuck d’you think we could’ve done that, huh?” he asked, annoyed. “You think we could’ve stopped my dad from beating on us, if we’d just done something different? Shit, I know you were pissed at me for getting married, but what the fuck other option was there?”

Ian looked confused at his tirade, and then something seemed to click into place in his head. “No– Mickey, hang on.” When Mickey didn’t respond, Ian grabbed him by the chin and turned his head to face him. Not so long ago, such a gesture would have earned him a punch to the face; now, though Mickey visibly tensed, he yielded to the gentle, firm guidance. “I’m not saying that, Mick. You did what you had to do. I get that.” When a little of the stiffness seeped out of Mickey’s bearing, Ian softened, letting his hand drop to the sheets. “I mean _this_. If we’d gotten you some kind of help, or if I’d been there from the start...then maybe it wouldn’t be this bad now. Fuck, Mickey, maybe you wouldn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night or shit like that.”

Mickey sagged forward and buried his face in his hands– not breaking down, just tired. “Fuck you,” he groaned, but the irritation had drained out of him, and his insult lacked any of the malice he might have intended. Ian scratched light fingertips up his back, and Mickey sighed in acceptance, then started to stand.

“Wait, where are you going?” Ian asked, an edge of anxiety to his voice. When Mickey managed to say “Water,” in his hoarse voice, Ian quickly said, “I’ll get it,” but Mickey rested a hand on his knee.

“I’ll do it myself,” he said gently, rubbing his thumb against his boyfriend’s knee to tell him that it was all right. He got up and went into the bathroom, leaning heavily against the sink for a second before splashing his face with water, and then drinking copiously before filling a glass again to take into the bedroom with him. When he walked back in Ian was blowing his nose into a tissue; he used another to pat his face dry, then threw both aside into the trash can. Mickey sat down, and Ian ran his hand over the man’s back in several slow passes. Mickey let himself tilt until he was burrowed against Ian’s side, his head resting on the Gallagher boy’s shoulder. The readiness to accept such comfort spoke volumes about his exhaustion.

“Are you OK?” Ian asked, his voice so soft Mickey might not have heard it if he wasn’t pressed so close. 

Any other time, Mickey would have pushed the question away and responded with a dismissive _Fuck off_. He hated that question; for all intents and purposes, he was always OK, at least as far as everyone else was concerned. Now, though, Mickey simply nodded into the man’s neck, then tilted his face so his lips were grazing the skin and responded, “Are _you_?” Ian sighed and nodded, his fingers stroking against Mickey’s scalp through his hair. 

“Feel like sleeping?” Ian asked.

Mickey shook his head vigorously, lifting it from Ian’s shoulder to do so. “Hell no,” he replied, feeling uneasy at the prospect of returning to the unpleasant dreams that were likely to haunt him. 

“Good,” Ian said, “because I don’t think I could go back to sleep even if I tried.” He took Mickey’s face in his hands and kissed him gently, before saying, “Come with me.”

They settled themselves on the couch, Mickey slumping onto his side of the couch while Ian sprawled into the space next to him. They switched the TV on, finding a late-night action film, and Ian went into the kitchen to make tea for himself and strong coffee for Mickey (who needed something potent to warm him right now, whereas Ian preferred something more likely to relax him). At first Mickey could barely watch the film, still on edge and restless. But the combination of the familiar movie and the proximity of Ian near him lulled him into a state of contentment. He found himself laughing a little at the funny bits, drinking his coffee a little less desperately, and letting the tension drain out of his muscles. 

When the credits were rolling, it was around 3 in the morning. Mickey looked up to see that Ian had nodded off after all, his cheek resting on his arm against the top of the sofa. Mickey himself knew that he would not be sleeping for the rest of the night, but saw no need to deprive Ian of the chance to get a small amount of rest. Easing himself up, he gently guided Ian until he was lying fully on the couch. Ian stirred and seemed to be trying to wake up, but Mickey made a gentle shushing sound and stayed close, hoping to keep Ian calm enough that he wouldn’t fully wake. It seemed to work, so Mickey carefully got up and went into the linen closet to get a blanket, then draped it over him so he would be comfortable. 

He realized that taking care of Ian was making him feel better too. It gave him a focal point to settle him down, and by the time Ian was fast asleep again, he felt much more balanced than he had been earlier in the night. He still knew he would not be able to sleep at all until the next night, and a touch of uneasiness remained– an uncomfortable tightness in his throat occasionally when he swallowed as he remembered the sensation of being choked, an ache in his lower back that mimicked a shadow of the pain he had been in on that day years ago. But Ian’s presence helped him feel cared for, in a way that was still vaguely unfamiliar to him after so long being neglected and abused. Now that he had calmed, he made himself another hot drink (he couldn’t help adding a touch of alcohol, to further numb the persistent sensation of uneasiness), switched on a dim light, and curled up in the armchair next to where Ian was stretched out on the couch, turning on music on his headphones with the volume on low and leaning back to close his eyes and drown out the rest of the world.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was because Ian was standing over him, rubbing his scalp with increasing pressure until he stirred. When he saw that he was waking up, he flicked Mickey’s arm hard enough that he yelped and rubbed the sore spot, glowering. “Wha’ the _fuck_?” he mumbled.

Ian just smiled at him, his lazy smirk nearly overpowering so early in the morning. He cocked his head towards the kitchen. “Breakfast’s ready,” he said cheerily in response to Mickey’s scowl. He ghosted the backs of his fingers over Mickey’s forehead and down his temple, a momentary gentleness that was his only acknowledgment of what had occurred the night before. “C’mon,” he said quietly as he made his way into the kitchen.

Mickey sat for a moment, feeling the echo of Ian’s touch on his face. Then– like the utterly whipped man he was, he thought with a rueful grin– he got up and followed.


End file.
